Another Visit to Bee Glad...

I went out today and checked on Bee Glad..., the one hive that has survived the winter so far. The hive was alive and active, even on this cloudy, upper 30s day. I might open her up tomorrow and quickly leave a pollen patty. Hopefully, I can also bring in some boxes from the dead-outs.

"Winterization" Part I

Today I took the first step in preparing my hives for winter. For each hive, I took off the feeder, placed in some fondant and a pollen patty, and put a quilt box on top. The two top bar hives have very little stores, so I simply hope the fondant is used.

In the next week or two I will wrap and insulate each hive.

Moving Some Stores Around

I opened up both top bar hives yesterday in order to check honey stores and move bars around. Metpropolis, my problem hive this year, has absolutely no capped honey to speak of.  Plan Bee has a little more but still not enough to make it through winter. I left some fondant in both hives and hope that the bees are able to store some nectar in the next few weeks.

Checking for Food Stores

The thermometer outside Beelandia registered 41 degrees F today, just warm enough for me to take a quick peek under the quilt boxes of one or two of the hives. I checked each of the langstroths in the apiary and found that each still had a good portion of the fondant I put into each hive a month and a half ago left. I placed a small patty of fondant in each anyway and closed them up quickly. The bees all looked fine!

Two Packages Ordered (Just in Case)

The honeybees in my five hives seem to be doing fine this winter, however, the next six weeks are a critical time in the life of a hive. Yes, my over-wintering hives look good today, but who knows what will happen in those weeks approaching spring. As a precaution, I've ordered two 3 lb. packages of bees from B and B. If all my hives survive then I will use the packages to start colonies at other out areas or give them to my beekeeping friends in the area whose colonies may not have survived.

Winter Feeding Quickly

I have had a hunch that the bees are at the end of their winter stores of honey for that last week or two. The late summer was not good for nectar, and while they took in a significant amount of sugar syrup and dry sugar in the fall, I was not confident that the bees had enough to get them through winter. I prepared myself for the first high 30s to 40 degree day by slicing some fondant and sandwiching them between two pieces of waxed paper and waited. Today's temperature is around 38 degrees, so I decided to feed the bees quickly.

The first hive I worked with is Nuc To Be Named Later. I took both the telescoping cover and the quilt box off, and sure enough I saw a good two dozen bees festooning out of the opening of the inner cover. Yes, they were in the top box and probably had little honey left. I placed a fondant "sandwich" near the bees at the opening and closed up quickly. In all, the operation took no more than two minutes. I went on and finished the other langstroths the same way. There were only a few honeybees at the top of Lib-BEE=taria (which contains carniolans) which I suspect have been a little more thrifty than the Italians in Nuc To Be Name Later. However, in Bee Glad..., the bees were in the same state as Nuc...,gathering about the opening in the inner cover. Like Nuc..., Bee Glad... is inhabited by Italians.

I also fed the two top bar hives. I opened up one of the secondary entrances in both hives and inserted a "tube" of fondant surrounded by sliced wax paper.

The whole operation took me little time and produced little stress on the bees.